Opinion Brief: Wednesday, March 1, 2017

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Good evening, subscribers. Donald Trump proved that you can lie your way to power without demonstrating any of the necessary skills for wielding it — provided your supporters are, in the main, people who don’t much care about, or for, politics. But what if you’re campaigning for the votes of political partisans — people more likely to see through the act?

Brent Rathgeber was taking the temperature of the crowd at Tuesday night’s Conservative Party of Canada leadership debate in Edmonton. His conclusion: Conservatives weren’t at all impressed with Kevin O’Leary’s decision to skip the debate in favour of holding his own event at a nearby hotel, and that resentment is making a first-ballot victory for Mr. Wonderful a lot less likely. “O’Leary is merely a candidate for the Conservative Party of Canada leadership. He doesn’t get to dictate terms. And none of the party members I spoke with Tuesday were impressed by O’Leary’s ability to pay a $10,000 fine; most rank and file Conservatives see that as a lot of money, and they expect a potential prime minister to have greater respect for it.”

Jonathan Manthorpe is back from his recent travels in Europe and Asia with a scene-setter on the fast-approaching Dutch election, a vote which could be the starting gun for a sprint of far-right candidates across Europe. “There is little doubt that Marine Le Pen will make it through to the second ballot in France, and her ultimate success will depend on how many people fear her becoming president. It may work to her benefit that both of France’s traditional left and right political formations are in total disarray.”

Back to Trump for a moment: We’re very pleased to welcome back Eric Morse with a sweeping piece on how the coalition’s plan to defeat ISIS on the ground in Iraq is working — and how an impatient, ignorant U.S. president could screw it all up. “Trump’s vow to ‘obliterate/extinguish’ ISIS is an absurdity — whether he knows it or not — and an incitement to evil, whether he knows that or not.”